Children’s Books

Visiting Day. By Jacqueline Woodson. Scholastic, ©2002. Gentle illustrations enhance this children’s book about a child’s prison visit to her father.

Novels

On the yard. By Malcolm Braly. NYRB Classics, ©1967  The author used his experience as an inmate of both juvenile and adult institutions to create a picture of the complex and frightening world of American prison life.

Yesterday will make you cry. By Chester Himes. W.W. Norton, ©1999.  This novel is based on the experiences of the author. Himes was imprisoned for eight years. Upon his release, he made a modest living free-lance writing. His hard-hitting novel was not accepted for publication for 16 years due to its graphic nature. Today it is considered a classic of the urban literature genre.

An Inmate’s Daughter, by Jan Walker. Raven Publishing, © 2006.  The compassionate story of Jenna, an inmate’s daughter, gives us insight into the challenges of families with a loved one in prison. It reminds all of us that the viewpoint of a child can teach us much about acceptance and tolerance.

Memoirs

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. By Alexander Berkman. NYRB Classics ©1999. After he was convicted and sentenced for attempted murder, Berkman wrote of his coming of age as an inmate in a Pennsylvania prison from 1892-1906.

Makes MeWanna Holler: a Young Black Man in America. By Nathan McCall. Vintage Books, ©1995. Washington Post journalist Nathan McCall writes about his misspent youth as a habitual criminal. And he tells about how his job as an inmate library clerk changed his life forever.

Non Fiction

The McNeil Century: The Life and Times of an Island Prison, by Paul W. Keve. Nelson-Hall ©1984 An analysis of the historical events and special operating conditions that made prison life at McNeil Island more safe and humane than at most other penitentiaries.

Concrete Mama: Prison Profiles from Walla Walla, by John McCoy University of Missouri Press ©1981 Washington State Penitentiary in the raw reality of prison life. The favorite prison book of all who served time there.

Doing Life: Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Sentences, by Howard Zehr, Good Books ©1996 Bleak b&w photography illustrate Zehr’s interviews with 60 men and women serving life sentences in Pennsylvania prisons.

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, by Ted Conover, Vintage Books © 2000  Investigative reporter Ted Conover spent nearly a year as a prison guard in the notorious New York prison to tell about life inside from the perspective of both the jailed and the jailer.

Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis, Seven Stories Press © 2003  Former political prisoner Angela Davis makes a well-researched argument for the abolishment of the present-day American penal system.

Politics of a Prison Riot: The 1980 New Mexico Prison Riot: Its causes and aftermath by Adolph Saenz, Rhombus Publishing Co. © 1986  Saenz was a witness to one of the most shocking incidents in modern history. He discusses that day and its long-reaching consequences for the American penal system.

Funhouse Mirror: Reflections on Prison, by Robert E. Gordon. Washington State University © 2000. This is a brutally honest and explicit book about Washington’s prisons and inmates, authored by a writing teacher within the correctional system. The book paints a revealing portrait of those who are incarcerated. It also includes short stories written by the inmates

Feature Films

The Shawshank Redemption. Columbia TriStar, ©1995.  Two convicts turn hope and friendship into an uplifting bond no prison can ever take away.

American Me. Universal Studios, ©1992  James Edward Olmos directed and starred in this violent depiction of gang life in a Los Angeles barrio– and later–prison life.

Murder in the First. Warner, © 1995.  This movie depicts the murder trial of Alcatraz inmate Henry Young that finally persuaded officials to close the institution.

Documentary

Doing Time: life inside the Big House. New Video, ©2006  This documentary looks at life within the walls of the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa., one-time home to Al Capone, Alger Hiss, and Jimmy Hoffa. Examines the daily routines of prisoners, guards, and the warden.

 

 

Children’s Books

The Face at the Window, by Regina Hanson.  Clarion Books, ©1997.

Exceptional children’s picture book that illustrates empathy for the mentally ill.

Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry, by Bebe Moore Campbell.  Putnam, ©2003

Nicely illustrated children’s picture book that explains mental illness to the very young.

 

Novels

Halfway House, by Katharine Noel.  Atlantic Monthly, ©2006

Set in a small town in New Hampshire, this is the story of a young woman’s psychotic breakdown—and her family’s subsequent turmoil.

 72 hour hold, by Bebe Moore Campbell. Knopf, ©2005

An African-American mother struggles to save her 18-year old daughter from the devastating consequences of bipolar disorder.

 

Memoirs

The Day The Voices Stopped.  By Ken Steele.  Basic Books, ©2001

The late Ken Steele wrote a painfully honest memoir about his life spent on the streets–and in and out of psychiatric hospitals–until a new medication gave him a new lease on life.

Madness: A Bipolar Life, by Marya Hornbacher.  Houghton-Mifflin, ©2008.

The author of “Wasted” takes us inside her own desperate attempts to control violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation before she learned how to manage her symptoms.

 

The Center Cannot Hold, by Elyn R. Saks.  Hyperion, ©2007

A memoir of paranoid schizophrenia by an accomplished professor recounts her first symptoms at the age of eight, her efforts to hide the severity of her condition, and the obstacles she has overcome in the course of her treatment and marriage.

  

Non Fiction

An Unquiet Mind.  By Kay Redfield Jamison.  Vintage, ©1996

Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Kay Jamison speaks about bipolar disorder drawing from her personal experiences.

  Surviving Schizophrenia (HarperCollins ©2001) and Surviving Manic Depression (Basic Books ©2002) , by E. Fuller Torrey. 

These guides for patients, families and the general public are considered classics on the topic of treatment and advocacy.

Crazy: a father’s search through America’s mental health madness.  By Pete Early.  Putnam, ©2006.

Pete Early used his journalistic skills to chronicle his—and others– harrowing odyssey to find help for their mentally ill loved ones.

 Connections: a self-help and resource guide.  NAMI Greater Seattle, ©2006

An essential guide for every library collection for individuals with mental illness, their families, and social service professionals.

 

Feature Films

 Shine.  New Line Video, ©1997

Australian pianist David Helfgott suffered a nervous breakdown at the zenith of his career.  With the support of friends, he returned to the concert hall.

 A Beautiful Mind.  Universal Studios, ©2002

Nobel Prize winner John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who spent years overwhelmed by his  schizophrenic delusions

 Canvas.  Universal, ©2008

Outstanding portrayal of the challenges faced by a man and his son when their wife/mother is hospitalized.

 

Documentary

Back From Madness: The Struggle For Sanity.  HBO Productions, ©2003

Follows four psychiatric patients for one to two years. The program is about the patients themselves, and the inner strength that is required of them as they search for some relief from the severe mental illnesses they are coping with–schizophrenia, manic-depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suicidal depression

Websites

 Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Admin (SAMHSA)

National Institute of Mental Health

Mental Health America

National Alliance on Mental Illness

 

Rehab, Recovery and Re-Entry: the role of Institutional Library Services in Washington State

Presenter:

Kathleen Benoun – Western State Hospital Patients Library

Over the ages, many have flown over the cuckoo’s nest.  People who have been hospitalized for psychosis include philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche, King George III, singer James Taylor, Mary Todd Lincoln, Vincent Van Gogh and sci-fi writer Philip K Dick

That changed in the early 1970s, when the State Library agreed to provide full library services and staffing at the major institutions of Washington State.   For a short and wonderful time, institutional libraries were well-funded and staffed.  Western State Hospital had two professional librarians, 3 to 4 library assistants and many patient clerk/pages.  Western also had two separate and distinct library collections: one for the patients and one for the professional staff.  But times changed.  The budget cuts began in the mid 1980s.  Library contracts with smaller facilities, such as the Soldiers Home in Orting and Interlake School and Lakeland Village in Medical Lake were not renewed.  Collections and staff were absorbed by larger institutions.  It was a trend that has not stopped.  The most recent budget casualties include the libraries at Rainier School in Buckley,   Fircrest School in Seattle and research libraries at the two state psychiatric hospitals.  And all this has happened during a Washington State population boom.  

So what is it really like to work inside a major psychiatric hospital?  If you believe that art and literature can elevate the human spirit, then a career in ILS is for you.  Sometimes ILS life is lonely, but it is never boring.   And work in ILS might be the most satisfying job you’ve ever had.  I serve the same patron that the public and academic library serves, but with a big difference.  I serve them “in sickness and in health.”  I am in a position to know the whole person, something typically denied the public librarian who typically meets people with non-medicated psychiatric illnesses.  

Who are the mentally ill?  Mental illness can occur anytime during the life cycle and has no preference for gender, social class, ethnicity or I.Q.  And there are more life events that can result in hospitalization.  They include traumatic brain injury or brain damage due to drug overuse.  Personality disorders, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, can result in repeated hospitalizations because such thought disorders are  not treatable with medication.  Some patients are committed by the courts, some are voluntary.  Some will stay weeks, or months, or years.  Some will come and go over a lifetime.

Today’s psychiatric hospital is modeled on the “treatment mall” concept.  Basically, imagine a college campus where a team of advisors create a curriculum based on patient needs.  A patient may need education about finances, drug education, stress management skills, relapse prevention, etc.  Visits to the library are covered in leisure education groups.  When they come to Eastern or Western State Hospital they will find a library very similar to that of a small public branch.  We purchase popular magazines,  fiction and non-fiction on a variety of topics.  And we specialize in lay literature regarding psychiatric and psychological disorders.  We provide interlibrary loan service so that patients may have access beyond the institutional walls.  We provide a lot of reference work.  We serve those who walk in and those who are confined to their wards.  The hottest check-outs are movies and music.  Especially music!  Music is so popular on campus that we have listening stations at the two psychiatric hospital libraries.  This attraction draws a lot of walk-in traffic!  We also offer supervised internet access at the two hospital libraries.  Psychiatric patients must be supervised at state-owned/state-maintained internet stations.  Prison inmates have no such access. 

I mentioned before that the ILS branches are staffed by one full-time person.  The branches also employ and train inmates and patients who are paid from institutional funds.  They are trained to shelve material, process new material, assist customers in finding material on the shelves and other tasks as needed.  The host institutions value this vocational training very highly. 

Our lives are made all the more interesting by the fact that we are employed by the State Library in a state institution with its own rules, policies and traditions.  I keep a radio by my side to summon security officers in case of trouble.  Yes, there is trouble from disgruntled patrons from time to time.  But most calls for help are for medical emergencies, such as seizures.  Like public libraries, additions to our collection may be criticized. The most challenged materials at the hospitals are the movies.  Some wards will not allow any R-rated film to be shown in the common area.  At this time, we are contracted to provide lay material for leisure, education and recovery at the hospitals.  Hospital staff would dearly love to supplement their curriculum needs with our budgets, and that has been quite a diplomatic challenge. The good news is that the hospital values the library and supports it with enthusiasm.  And WSH hospital staff is responsible for 30 percent of our total circulation figures! 

 Does an on-site institutional library really make a difference?  Many years ago, there were three library staff at Western State Hospital and I used to visit the wards to present fun library programs.  One day, I was visiting a ward with elderly residents.  An old man confined to a geri chair beckoned me to him.  He told me that he loved libraries and that his father had been a famous archaeologist.  He had inherited some of the artifacts his father had brought back from his digs.  Would I like to see them?  I was not sure at all that this man was telling me true facts, as I had enough experience by then to know that many of my library patrons repeat delusional beliefs.  But I told him I’d be honored.  He insisted that I give him my name and a phone number.  Later that week, I received a phone call.  Not from the old man, but from his wife.  Yes, said she, her husband had a rare collection of antiques from archaeological digs her father-in-law had collected between 1900 and 1920.  And she’d be pleased to bring them to the hospital for viewing.  I was stunned and I told my boss about the offer.  We held a special library program and filled every chair.   Mrs. Murphy brought fantastic museum quality exhibits and told stories about her father-in-law.  Her husband was in the audience.  From time to time, he would correct her on a point or statement.  After that event, Mr. Murphy dramatically improved and was discharged home. 

Laura was one of those visitors to the library who was quiet and non-demanding.  Her stay at the hospital was fairly short as her family had the resources to provide private care.  Her diagnosis was manic depression.  Laura was discharged and I didn’t hear from her for years.  The next time we met, Laura was the new hospital consumer affairs officer, a very important liaison job.  She met me while touring all patient areas on campus.  Laura told me that she had been surprised and happy that there was a library on the hospital grounds during her stay.  Reading magazines and books encouraged her to go back to school and complete her education.   And she has been a strong library advocate ever since.

Brian was hospitalized for about 5-7 years on one of the forensic wards.  That means that he committed a felony during a psychotic episode and was sent by the court to the state psychiatric hospital for treatment rather than into the prison system.  He was one of our big readers and did his share to keep those circ figures high.  Brian improved and was released from the hospital.  I did not hear from him for three years.  Then he walked in one day to the library and placed a book on the counter.  “I’m a published writer!” he told me.  And he was.  He told me that his years in the hospital had not been wasted in sorrow and grief for his past.  He had spent his time reading and practicing fiction writing. 

             Library newspapers, magazines, and books allow the locked up & locked in — to keep in touch with the outside world.  Laura Sherbo, ILS manager, has created a new re-entry resource guide to help patients and inmates connect with community resources.  So many are required to start lives anew in communities where they are strangers.    The Re-Entry Resource guide provides information about housing, employment, apprenticeships, spiritual fellowship, and advocacy organizations.